The fundraising campaign at PledgeMusic for the new album, "Home", has hit its initial target, and has gone beyond!

Work is now well underway in putting the finishing touches to the follow-up to my first solo album, "Diary of a Lost Girl".

Even though the campaign has reached its target, you can still contribute. Pledging your support will mean you gain exclusive access to what the album's all about, a sneaky preview of tracks, and other nerdy interview and fact-type updates that true fans love.

It’s Thursday night in Edinburgh and I’m heading over to The Voodoo Rooms to see a gig and write a review. Now I’m not sure about this one, my expectations are very high! This is a type/genre of music that I’m not sure is quite as good live as it is played through a top end hi-fi, will I be disappointed … certainly not!

There are times when I think I am lost in music. Caught in a trap, even. Then there are times when I think I might be tripping over musical clichés and times when I wonder how anybody gets through life, or a gig at least, without alcohol. So it was that my now vulnerable consciousness encountered the many wonders of Louise Rutkowski.

Having made an impact originally in the 1980s as a vocalist with Sunset Gun, and then with 4AD stalwarts, This Mortal Coil, Louise disappeared from the music scene, but has spent almost seven years creating her solo debut. At the age of 49, she steps into the spotlight with a gorgeous and simple album that highlights her powerful voice, thanks to considerate arrangements by collaborator and co-composer Irvin Duguid.

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Review

This debut solo album from Glasgow-based chanteuse Louise Rutkowski has been a long time coming. Rutkowski fronted soul pop band Sunset Gun in the 1980s, was a guest vocalist for 4AD supergroup This Mortal Coil and Ivo Watts-Russell's follow-up project The Hope Blister, and collaborated with composer Craig Armstrong in the 1990s as The Kindness of Strangers.

Irvin Duguid is her foil on this immaculately produced piano-led collection, which foregrounds Rutkowski's cool, classy voice in all its Kate Bush-like huskiness, athleticism and drama. A couple of songs stray into the middle of the road but elsewhere the widescreen melancholy of "The Passing" and vulnerable ballad "Help Me" are elegantly accomplished.

Review

There are times when I think I am lost in music. Caught in a trap, even. Then there are times when I think I might be tripping over musical clichés and times when I wonder how anybody gets through life, or a gig at least, without alcohol. So it was that my now vulnerable consciousness encountered the many wonders of Louise Rutkowski.

When she announced that she was going to sing her album “Diary of a Lost Girl” in its entirety and the backing track kicked in, my spirits prepared for the seemingly inevitable orbital decay over the planet Disappointment for Ms. Rutkowski has a real voice, properly trained and truly entrancing, that needs nowhere to hide and she certainly would have no need of a backing track to keep her on that road to musical redemption.

Sure enough, the first couple of songs were perfunctory replays of the recorded version but, as all sportsmen and women know, everybody needs a warm up. Suitably warmed up and properly ready to go for gold, Ms. Rutkowski steadily built up the drama until she was ready to go large on the emotion and take that well deserved place on the winner’s podium.

That’s the thing, you see. The ability to take mere words and float them upon a cloud is the mark of a great singer. Anything else in the presentation is incidental for that talent is rare and, in the interests of clarity and for the avoidance of doubt, is a talent blessed upon Louise Rutkowski.

I don’t know if you can name the stars in the sky but, if you can, I’m sure I’d name one of them Louise Rutkowski.